“How are you enjoying it?” – was the question posted on social media as my time in Nan-Chang came it end.

The question came from someone id not seen in the actual world for some time. As a result i lacked clarity on the level of appreciation that existed.. Perhaps people thought id gone on tour? My – you’re not in the shire any more – social updates, the ones that had instigated this question, had a back drop which had probably not been overly shared.. Random semi incoherent utterings over recant months, if people had the energy and wrong minded inclination to spend their time sifting it out.

In shorter terms than those above, i responded with something that approximates an answer and historic back fill:

“Its not been a holiday so it in terms of enjoyment… when you’re here for the incompetence of people and in job for a company you’ve so long wanted nothing to do with .. it could have been really shit and it really wasn’t”

“China is probably a 6.5/10 place reduced by at least 1 for the excessive and most unnecessary abundance of heat humidity combinations.. but the Chinese are probably an 8 or maybe more .. an untrue generalisation on any peoples but in a place as vast and people rich as this i imagine quite nonsensical indeed – yet as odd as it can seem .. all people are odd and the odd that they have here seems in so many ways preferable to the odd elsewhere – i will miss the Chinese and the way of things here when its far away i suspect – having been able to appreciate its presence .. enjoyed i don’t know, but appreciated and missed when absent i think so”

How is that you score a country or a whole people, what does that even mean? not only are there so many different parts (people / areas etc) but what are they being scored on and why … nope that all ok .. they are an 8, say no more, job done and thats out of 10 by the way – if you weren’t clear ..

This came 2 months after i’d arrived in China 2 months or slightly more than 7 weeks in Nan Chang that had included a fair bit of ritualised office going, just as it would in the UK with work but in terms of my existence to that point this is where routine ended. This is not to suggest the trip had been in any way remarkable to this point, it had not but to say it was routine or somehow the norm, well i’d worked up in Liverpool for a while once but this wasn’t that… so no it was definitively different / not ritual or routine.

The not full flight to Dubai and its generous stretching out opportunity and conundrum – to stretch is too sleep, too sleep is to not watch the movies and have the drinks .. Long Haul Flights are to be savoured, sleeping negates savouring, it is sleep and it doesn’t belong or owe allegiance to whichever surround that houses it

My previous trip to china had when viewed against its purpose been a success, the project had not been put back on course, that was never likely, but we’d had an honest and considered reflection on where we were, how much remained as well as the time and other things required to achieve it.

It wasnt an answer many would have welcomed and they didnt but it was at its heart an honest and more importantly worked through view, based on a considered though still optimistic deconstruction of what remained. I had returned to the UK with Cambodia holidays in mind and a faint wiff of disembodied hope wafting accidentally in the wind.

It did not last by the time id returned from the Thailand (the post Cambodia part of that holiday) the feedback and corresponding plan had been thrown out. The UK team has again come back with some 5 week plan that they’d made up an we (the owner of my employer) had taken that because it sounded a whole lot better than 10-14… and we liked things that sounded a whole lot better, even if they came with no substantiation, from a source that had evidently never yet been correct and had neither the means nor inclination to be so.

One other pre-requiest for the project getting back on track was stated and then stated again on each call i had with China that i needed to go out there. Again no action was taken. Instead a return to the threats from us and vast distortions (i dont say lies because it was somehow not this, it was a complete disconnect with the truth to a point far beyond delusion) it was odd but mostly infuriating.

This went on with early morning calls UK time meeting evening call China time.. Their UK affiliate telling our owner there were 4 people dedicated and working on our project as a prioity, while the China team told me they had been told to work on other projects but we’d had 1 person looking at something… or similar such updates.. Either way i was going nowhere and the project, now a further 6 weeks later had not moved an inch.

I resigned – I resigned while on holiday in Spain or Portugal… while using up some more of my stock piled holiday. Two ego-fantasists arguing but bot arguing in a joint fantasy world was pointless. I contacted China and asked if they would accept my assistance if i came as me and not an employee. There were two issues at stake, this was 1.5 years worth of work, my work that was being flushed .. second it was a piece of work on which 4 peoples jobs were dependant. .. Either it was up by July or the project was to be cancelled and peoples jobs.. it had been strongly intimated to me, they were at risk- it was already early May at that time and many of those 10-12 weeks has already been wasted. Third – doing this meant a level of cost but would be far easier to explain if it came up in looking at other jobs, which it almost certainly would.

This act of resigning and seeking to make my own way to china had the unforeseen consequence of forcing the issue – rather than resigning and heading to China as a free agent, an agreement was reached that i would go under the companies flag.. Cheaper for me, flights and accommodation .. on the flip side i would not yet escape my shackle to their collective world, a dystopian feeling mash up somewhere between ‘cool world’ and the drunk dumbo dream sequence , id never much cared for.

the fact this version is in a language that is only passingly familiar inadvertently makes it more apt to the time.

With the plan from March suggesting an August delivery and with it now being the beginning of June i set out to China, with no real belief in anything other than my desire to negate the regret of not at least trying. I may have been at the end of my role but others still wanted their jobs … id hired them, put them in this position.. You can fail, i thought i would probably be okay with failing given how hampered we’d been, but only if there was the knowledge of having properly tried. If they lost their jobs, having shrugged and walked off, i think i have left future me with some things to think on he’d rather then present me hadn’t.

While this is my Flat – some small part of this on one of the almost top but not quite floors. Many buttons in the lift, it was pretty tall but not notably so, pretty standard sort of height in China. I was on the 20 somethingest floor.

It came with a gate door to protect its actual door.. Most flats didnt have this, mine did – i wouldnt say it would be one of those install this to add value to your property things they tell you about on Channel 4 .. First impressions pass quickly enough but it makes one.

Life in the flat had one memorable challenge which stand up to memory erosion. It was sleep and achieving it. The bed was entirely solid, there as a mattress but someone it was formed of a substances that was harder than the floor itself. If this seems like an improbable exaggeration, well then …maybe.. seems like one .. but i did end up opting to move myself and my sleeping bad to facilitate an attempt at sleeping on the kitchen floor through the pursuit of greater comfort. Whats more it worked. I was not unfamiliar with the concept of the unnaturally solid mattress having been first introduced to it during 3 months in Nepal. As then, i grew accustomed to it, at least most of me did, my back maintained reservations and expressed them to me at the beginning of each day as i tried to get up. I found a rolling technique helped overcome this. Legs drooping over the edge,toes seeking to fish out some floor.

The other issue that stood between me was the air con.. It brought the cold or rather the sort of temperature that didnt torment a person to perpetual consciousness. It made noise in its efforts, not persistently but in disruptive fits and starts. It had a night mode id been introduced to on moving in, a button on the remote id subsequently all but immediately lost track off and rediscovered only by after some mass button pushing. A mass pushing that id failed to conduct in an orderly fashion and so again lost track of which button id struck upon to achieve this. Eventually however the secret of the night mode became known to me. Oddly thought the night mode did nothing about the temperature display, its neon blue light shining so much brighter than ever seemed possible during the day. At least no ships would inadvertently breach the river banks travel a few miles across land and strike the block of flats in the night time.

I tried sleeping with shades .. it was not an run away success

I tried the hood on my sleeping bag, turning the sleeping bag upside down to covert the hood into a face cover.. it was a little more successful ..

Shopping presented challenges on any packed items where ambiguity over the contents became a possibility.. My first pensive effort to secure milk for the purposes of tea was testament to that. This was not that effort, the milk that wasn’t came in a carton that very much resembled what used to come around on trolleys at school .. what was in it was white but it was gluepy in a border line yogurt way but it wasn’t yogurt, im pretty confident it wasn’t a for m of off milk as it was sort of sweet. least the very small amount i placed on the tip of my tongue as an effort at hesitant effort at investigating seemed like it probably was. This looked like a garlic and chilli sauce. it even came with English words “No 1 Hot Sauce” – it was not lying .. i dont know what the number 1 was scored on but it was hot – if not mixed and used in district moderation, it was an inedible stomach infuriating concoction.. still I bought it again when it was used up.. it had that key benefit of knowing what it was

The 10 minute walk to work exited in two forms.. the June form which was grey, overcast and occasionally torrentially wet. It made for some muddy pathways across this short cut. The july form of the trip existed in burning heat that meant any freshness of person and clothing that had been attempted in the flat was a thing of distant history by the time of arriving at the office. Walking to work involved a wonder through the flats in the background of the shot below. The local inhabitants were mostly about, sat around outside, in the morning some among them would look to greet with their preferred turn of English phrase – How are you? – or just hello .. it nice to find yourself so greeted into the day. In the evenings as the weather grew dryer and warmer, groups of women clustered around what wasn’t really a ghetto blaster, but another form of portable music box, and they danced.

Work Offices

The Injoy Shopping Centre – NanChang, a very local convenience.

By The Nan Chang River:

The river bank at Nanchang turns into a giant display at night. Sky scrappers as far as you can see along both banks act as giant screen with animations and other context free things shine out. Id live amongst this the first time i was here (for the 5 day initial visit in March) and came back once this second time.

One of the developers had taken it upon himself to invite other out for some games of pool. This is not my game but being terrible at pool in a public arena is something life has taught me to be accustomed to, the invite was very welcome as thing to fill part of a none working weekend. As evening came we headed toward the river to watch the show in the form of the music and fountains, water display.

There were also funfair rides – they were not Alton Towers – but the sense of readily appreciated fun that imbued my hosts, it was a little infectious.

Back at the flat:

and a good few weeks in – the discovery by inadvertent button pushing that one of those buttons switched off the air con illuminations …and so it was that sleep gradually became that more readily achieved thing that would be there to greet me at the end of the days.

Wondering About:

A more premium priced store existed by the river – it had European products.. Cereal and Milk came from here .. Milk meant Tea and the ability to make use of that big old pack of Tetley that had travelled with me.

Football

Another developer invited me to football..I had no football boots here, they were not among the things id packed, just the plimsolls i wondered about in, no shin pads and no socks… given the position i play shin pads do rather matter. Not about to decline mind, love football, hadn’t played for over a year and not done much in the way of surrogate exercise. I was offered some shoes but then i realise they weren’t spares they were actually someone eles game shoes -so generous and not okay – also i realised this while trying to get my foot into them, they didn’t want to, the size was not a UK size.

Still so warm. It was an 8 o’clock kick off, the night 8 o’clock and it was dark but the temperature didn’t rely on the sun to sustain itself.

The lack of sock was a problem – the astro removing a fair chunk of skin, just an outer layer .. this despite barley moving past a wonder, shuffle to a jog .. It was as well that time had already seen me move gradually to playing centre back, if id actually had to play in the midfield i might not have made it. .. i was regularly dizzy as it was .. still im not sure id enjoyed myself as much in good long time. 3 weeks of football in China. i even bought socks and astro shoes

The skin wound that would normally have healed in 2 days or so – at least forming a crust and being done.. did not do this in China. Instead it somewhat unpleasantly seeped oozed for weeks.

The local players seemed politely unfamiliar with the European .. actually more UK defending … a lot movement (even more impressive give nature was doing all it surely could to put an end to any idea of mobility) and short passing. A collection of central midfielders with a reasonably solid sense of team play, certainly far more that you would see among men in the UK, though less so with womens football which tends to exhibit more of this, in my experience. The agricultural clearance when under pressure has now been firmly introduced, whether it will become a popular move and spread though out the land, we shall have to wait to see.

Coming To It End:

Regular Dinner Offering From Local Restaurant

Bottling The Water – They Need To Do Something About This .. Plastic Problem – It mounts up

In early 2017 i was dispatched to China – the owner of the company i worked for having become most displeased with the apparent lack of progress made by our development agency. To be fair it was a moment of clarity, a accurate view, of an agency that had spent around nine month of our engagement without even mentioning the fact they wouldnt be doing the development themselves.

Their China office was, it would go on to transpire, a closely affiliated agency and they were beyond struggling. The UK agency we’d been dealing with were not a poor development agency – it wasn’t a development agency at all, , that was whoever these people were out in China. They were not selling us on an idea, they were actively deceiving, how had the china agency remained unmentioned for the first fourth month, it seemed an implausible inadvertent oversight .. After around six month the project had delivery nothing and so here we were, a trip to China.

My role was to speak directly with those charged with delivering the project and ascertain exactly what had gone on and where we really were.

I flew out via Paris to Beijing and onto Nan Chag.

With a substantial gap between flights in Beijing that needed to be filled by some purposeless meandering about. It was a sizeable terminal, the largest ive ever seen and quite new

Breakfast – There Was Also A Perished Egg, That Didn’t Seem Appealing – But This Was Really Nice and Not As Odd As At Home Me Might Have Found This Toast Replacement

I flew back via Beijing and onto Paris.

There was an even more substantial gap between flights in Beijing and this time it was pretty familiar. Amazing what a few too many hours in an airport and about 5 days can do. This time i’d had time to think on my stay in Beijing and though on landing at Beijing had formed no conclusion, there was at least the thoughts.

So i handed over my luggage to a storage desk and headed to the airport connecting train that went somewhere in the direction of some part of central Beijing, i place i imagined was probably quite an expansive city with a potentially elusive or numerous actual centre(s).

The flight landed at charles de gaulle airport – the flight on to London didn’t leave from there Id not noticed this during the rushed booking and visa acquiring efforts but had discussed it with the Air France ground staff in China. The bus they had told me would transfer me from one airport to another it now turned out didnt run in the very wee small hours of the morning that it now was in Paris… Not something that was immediately clear and there was pretty much no one and nothing open in arrivals to ask about the busses whereabouts .. a detour here and there, produced no signs of anyone.. so off to Arrivals and hope for more luck. The luck was the people that while scarce, existed up there, the less lucky was the news of there being no such bus at these times.

Taxi – premium, Airport Taxi and a connection to Orly Airport .. it was the only apparent option, it reflected poorly on Air France in so many ways (the lack of a connection, the incorrect information about the connection and the lack of any staff ) but the focus at the time was not really on these shortcomings but on London and the Cambodia Trip that was just days away.

Work wise this had only been a short engagement, 6 months and it was weird..from doing back to work discussions with those so angered by there experience that they’d left some months prior and not returned, to ongoing displeasure of those team members who remained … looking to get the documentation on business projects i was hired to oversee and then finding out there was actually no such projects – there were things that were not even sketched on drawing boards that remained in their packaging.. It was the weirdest and most inexplicable of situations.

Now with a mixture of relief and disappointment its over .. it was for the most part a nice team, the one that got assembled upon the scorched earth .. and i found myself with the one reservation of leaving them.

Leaving them to the all the inexplicable things that had scorched the earth before, devastating the teams numbers and moral .. and its looming return .. I was trying not to think about it too much.. I’d asked them to put their despondence and disbelief to one side those few months ago, to give it a chance and in so doing made it worse. For the doubt filled reservation that lined up behind those words were only doubts for a further couple of weeks. Id asked them to have some faith and within what could still be legitimately counted in days i knew there was no faith, only blinkered folly that could believe in change.

I pulled and pushed them, asked them for just enough belief to give it ago, then left. I’d thought, incorrectly, that i would take up the fight, normally i do at least for a time vigorously pursing change against the prevailing established mindset.. but not this time – from the first moment i had doubt, then grave doubt and within only weeks really acceptance. So i think this was not like before – never really managing to become invested in any way, it was a short term contract and it was all just so very mad, why invest yourself in it, the inadvertent thought.

Also i may have accidentally adapted, in unhelpful way, taking an approach now based on the belief that things cant be changed, this can only change themselves. You (or in this case I) can hold up the mirror and if they ask you (in this case me) to make suggestions .. then yes, and watch to see their actions for the effort doesnt come in daring to ask the question ..

But recast a thing, change it, no – it can not be done to something … this was the equivalent to a clinically obese person that invested for their health, buying in a shiny new exercise bike and then gazing at it, as it poked out knowingly, from behind a very fine and infinitely closer form of cake.

So having made all to easy but not entirely successful efforts at not thinking overly on it, i left … in part a leaving and not thinking on it that remains occasionally hindered by ongoing calls and messages that leaving has failed to put pay too.. In every way this is the oddest (not worst) but oddest situation – i definitely felt more like a psychologist/therapist or a new kind of care worker, im not one of these, im not sure i mind the idea of being one of those… they sound like interesting jobs, helping people.. only i wasn’t really helping merely postponing .. There ongoing communications will peter out shortly and then, im going to miss some them i suspect.

On the flip side

World Cup

Free Time And No Hassles

Travel Plans For The Summer

All beckon – though not in that order ..

In the meantime news came in from a past employer, the last of my old team was leaving them … they’d taken to introducing lunch rotas to stop people lunching together.. For a business that bought things that remarkably few people wanted or were financially able to buy, over worked staff members eating at the same time doesn’t seem like it ought to be the key issue needing to be addressed.

I really need to like at my job choices … contract or none contract – im not doing my due diligence – if nothing else is clear and it isnt then that need be in no doubt.

While the UK troops toward deliberate, expertly planned and impeccably implemented exit stage left? right? …um .. the world cup is almost upon us. and my current work contract has (for the most part) come to an end.

Recent times have consisted of:

London

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Shire Wondering – as something that looks a bit like summer has come:

I also took a trip up north to finish a discussion – there were options for the summer but nothing overly clear, hence the trip up north to locate a brother and ascertain more clarity.

The question was there something beyond the initial talk and intentions and if there was, then which option?

Alaska

Chile (largely ruled out for the intended time of year appearing low or against the thoughts of those online making their recommendations)

Touring Australia

China

Japan

Asia Touring

With one of us coming up on an extensive student summer holiday and the other drawing a short term employment contract to its end – the opportunity for a more adventurous turn was there in a way it might not often be again.

We must turn the power and resources of our private enterprise system to the underdeveloped nation within our midst. This should be done by bringing into the ghettos themselves productive and profitable private industry – creating dignified jobs, not welfare handouts, for the men and youth who now languish in idleness.

Make gentle the life of this world

The jobs have fled to the suburbs, or have been replaced by machines, or have moved beyond the reach of those with limited education and skills …

The fact is, if we want to change these conditions – those of us here in this room, those of us who are in the establishment, whether it be business, or labour, or government – we must act. The fact is that we can act. And the fact is also that we are not acting.

Make gentle the life of this world

Our society – all our values, our views of each other, and our own self-esteem; the contribution we can make to ourselves, our families, and the community around us – all these things are built on the work we do. But too many of the inhabitants of these areas are without the purpose, the satisfaction, or the dignity that we find in our work.

Make gentle the life of this world

And there are others: on the back roads of Mississippi, where thousands of children slowly starve their lives away, their minds damaged beyond repair by the age of four or five; in the camps of the migrant workers, a half million nomads virtually unprotected by collective bargaining or social security, minimum wage or workmen’s compensation, exposed to the caprice of fate and the cruelty of their fellow man alike; and on Indian reservations where the unemployment rate is 80 percent, and where suicide is not a philosopher’s question but the leading cause of death among young people.

Make gentle the life of this world

And the effects of the shortage of meaningful employment are reinforced by a welfare structure which is frequently destructive both of individuals and of the community in which they live.

More basically, welfare itself had done much to divide our people, to alienate us one from the other. Partly this separation comes from the understandable resentment of the taxpayer, helplessly watching your welfare rolls and your property tax rise. But there is greater resentment among the poor, the recipient s of our charity. Some of it comes from the brutality of the welfare system itself: from the prying bureaucrat, an all powerful administrator deciding at his desk who is deserving

“The free play of economic forces will not by itself automatically overcome these difficulties. Regulative measures by the community are needed to bring about a sound distribution of labour and consumption goods among mankind; without them even the people of the richest countries will suffocate. The fact is that since the amount of work needed to supply everybody’s needs has been reduced through the improvement of technical methods, the free play of economic forces no longer produces a state of affairs in which all the available labour can find employment. Deliberate regulation and organisation are becoming necessary to make the results of technical progress beneficial to all.”

Finally having had my last round of meetings and with whatever information I was going to be able to get, gotten I was able to offer my conclusion.

The criteria had been around for ages, they were clear all that I needed to do with see if anything had altered and I found little had.

There is only fear and possibly pragmatism to keep me rather than go for the unknown. There is much to be said for pragmatism, if I were someone else I might well be pointing me at it.
This will be the second time I have had a job floated before me only to turn away, I told myself last time I would play the long game.

I haven’t. My employer has 2 years in it before they look to sell up, I could have stayed for those two years, I probably would have if only they had been able to offer a reason. Instead the only reason & it’s a fair one, was because the alternative is loosing your job like it was last time.

I can see I may regret this – a little anxiety simmers but on the flip side this evening is different, for the first time in ages I don’t feel tired or weighted. For now it’s a relief. I know yet underestimate the pressure of indecision and uncertainty as well as the pressure of unemployment to take that which comes along.

Work is done, IT support managing to phone just as I was shutting down and headed in a timely fashion toward the exit.

I minor delay as I explained what was wrong, it was very much the same thing that has been wrong for around 2 month, 6/7 support tickets and 5/6 calls. It was a brief explanation, then off to the Piccadilly line, Heathrow Terminal 4, the one that was the new one for quite along time until they went and build another and renuilt 2.

There is a freshness issue brought along by a seat neighbour but it’s running and I’m at Osterley .. Not heard of it but it’s only 5 more stations.

The work meeting provided no answers and am effectively none the wiser but that’s not a thing for now – now Amsterdam and all that whatever this will bring looms .. A nice quiet trip to Pizza Hut, maybe some balloons, suddenly has enticing writen all over it.

Hounslow 3 more stations and the man with the staleness cloud has disembarked himself, breathing is a whole new experience.
Must have been a real treat sat near me on the trains on Sunday on the way home after football, stewing in the Regent’s Park adorning kit, sharing.

Wondering what food they have in the departure hall, been a while .. And hoping I did pack the boarding card and passport… I’ve checked, more than once but that was another moment and you never can be too sure especially when one is a true master of loosing stuff. Both of the two things could be considered stuff and therefore must be viewed as at risk. Still not checking it again – not now – no point.. just about there, 1 station .. the problem will be comsiderable either way if we’ve parted ways somehow, somewhen..

Liverpools most useless of managers is inspiring sterling must stay – he has a contract – it’s true.. He does … Not sure how that serves to resolve matters other potentially one more reason being eeked out..
It would certainly preferable if ot were the other way around..

Heathrow

There is a pret .. Pret the familiar .. pret the London infester – but pret the actually pretty good.. And while outside of an airport a very mid market sort of sand which option, within such little close of world, with its ever fixed price a veritable bargain of foods.

There are it seems a lot of flights to Amsterdam – most popular if spiradically times route. But for the 18:30 inclined traveler, options be abound.

Fokker 70 – quite big and not the largest.
In way of evidence that we may not be the first to have struck upon the notion of Amsterdam based stag trips, others are unashamedly strutting through the cabin adorned in novelty clothing.. One in particular..
Someone got up and shouted my name randomly as some people entered .. It came directly from behind me so I turned .. I know that one of the other unfamiliar members of the soon to be assembled collective is a fellow traveller on this flight and couldn’t fathom if this were a wholly random event, or if that was the name of the tall but no longer young chap then wondering into the plane .. I presumed it was the latter .. Given the lack of subsequent interaction I can only deduce this was not the case

May and it will not be long until Oscar marries, it’s come round quick which shouldn’t be a surprise and always is. Today it’s the commencement of his stag weekend, a bank holiday elongated stag weekend in Amsterdam. It’s very tedious and a bit socially unacceptable of me but in not looking forward to it. It could so very likely become just a tad to untoward for my slowing and never were too vigorous tastes.

When I first met Oscar he was a lairy sort under the influence, settling down in recent times but some of his old acquaintances (whom mostly I do not personally know) have a reputation for not having relinquished such inclinations at the door.

Trepidation. Fuelled on my side by some amount of ropiness which has manifested itself as Fatigue, confusion, a most unvarnished guard and some digestive system discomfort. The merest decline in energy levels and the speed of mental recoil is pronounced, requiring not the challenge of weekends such as this.

On the flip side- going abroad, somewhere I’ve not visited before, I was not burdened with a wide variety of other plans… The question how socially acceptable is it to go away but only participate in the more sober and pedestrian activities?
Other friends have gotten married but their stag things were not nights/weekends in the way this is, the rules are unclear.

First though to work and another meeting to discuss the future. Having. Discussed it at some length with my boss at the beginning of the week it’s now my bosses boss… I don’t see myself staying really, pragmatically I probably should and go with it regardless but I don’t really believe in their project, lofty ambitions beyond the spheres of probable reality and moderate to slender resourcing, the reality gap is rather large.

My boss is leaving and my natural inclination is to follow, not in the general sense but in the specific sense of this role. Better to be one of the many in a pleasant land than a price of a sprawling baron desert.

Still we will see. My cv has been changeable (job wise) and while my boss was in place I’d not looked at other roles. I have now started to (most moderately) but now or rather when I get back from Amsterdam this will have to be taken more seriously. It’s defiantly time for something newer, my understanding of digital is quite well settled in after all those inadvertent years working in it, repeating, comfortable. The uncomfortable notion of the salary reducers looms as fresher areas are sought out, the question that casts the biggest shadow though- what?

Political jobs would be ideal but I’m labour and the Labour Party is a clique, a club and inward looking network or rather two invested looking networks – the central party and the local parties – both quite different in many ways but both highly old fashioned, out dated and out of touch, there is something of the old club about them where you pass through the rooms depending upon family, acquaintances, longevity and toil. The first two are more for the central party and the latter for the local. Toil and longevity are certainly more rational and worthy reasons given that no party can function without its loyal activists working to it’s cause.
It’s so dammed interminably tedious though, the meetings they go on and on and on and on some more – as near as my wilted concentration levels can tell mostly about remarkably little.

There is no objectivity or professionalism or efficiency about any of it, maybe that’s how it’s meant to be but to add to the list of 22nd of May grumbles I really am not in agreement with it. Part of me has long thought a new pan European affiliated party built on activism and more modern social tools was needed. The Labour Party resists change so diligently and nothing so good at this really comes to benefit from it, the world moves on and leaves it behind.

If I worked for them I would not stop in pursuing change, the energy I had for work would not be a surface exercise fuelled by interest in the puzzle but a routed and meaningful interest in the outcome. That said the party is probably more inclined to irrelevance than to change, aside from perhaps espousing some more conservative styled policies to appease the inherently right leaning southern England populous. Change the figure head and the policies but not the operational infrastructure or 1950s apparatus.

What this really needs is a distant railing against on an obscure web page with all the prethought of a Friday morning stop off commute to Heathrow.